Hockey arenas at the Milan Cortina Olympics are ready just in time for the puck to drop

MILAN (AP) — Workers in hard hats and orange vests scurried around behind the scenes Wednesday inside the freshly built main hockey arena for the Milan Cortina Olympics. On the concourse less than 24 hours before doors open to fans, piles of broken-down Corona Zero boxes sat outside concession stands not far from a man on a scissor lift securing a pipe. The secondary rink, 12 miles (19.31 kilometers) away on the other side of Milan, is a makeshift structure with a maze of supports holding up temporary walkways, with large black curtains surrounding the rink and hanging at each entryway to insulate it. The finishing touches are going down to the wire, but the concerningly slow pace of construction will not prevent the women's tournament from getting underway Thursday following significant progress in recent weeks. And the men's tournament, which welcomes NHL players back to the Olympics for the first time since 2014, is also on track. "For the whole team that's been working on it — that's built the venue — it's amazing what everyone's accomplished," said Veronika Muehlhofer, the venue manager at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. "We still have cleaning and things to perfect for the first game (Thursday), but these are my ninth Games, so you always come down to lots to do in the last few days. And then any time we drop the first puck, it's like a big relief." Construction concerns began years ago and lingered until late January NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman began voicing concerns about the arena all the way back in 2023, before the deal was reached to send players in 2026 and '30. League and union officials attended recent test events that raised optimism about the project getting completed in time for the men's tournament, which begins next Wednesday. "We've had to monitor it, and we're constantly being assured that everything will be OK," Bettman told the AP last week. How close were things to not being ready at the arena that will host 24 men's and nine women's games? Less than 10 days ago, said ice master Don Moffatt, there was a layer of mud down the Zamboni tunnel all the way to the ice as recently as Jan. 25. "Mud where you couldn't take one step off the field of play without stepping in mud and then bringing it back onto the surface," Moffatt said. "They were finishing temporary seats. They were cleaning the seats. They were pulling off all the plastic covers. I felt like I was in Arizona or Texas with a dust storm. ... There was definitely some doubt there." Moffatt and his crew finally got to paint the ice on the night of Jan. 26, and for several days he kept everyone he could off the surface so it could settle in time for the first practices early this week. He skated on it to test it and came away satisfied. "It was solid and dense," Moffatt said. "It shows me that we made it the right way. We made it in slow, thin layers instead of just throwing a ton of water out there and let it freeze." What players who have been on the ice at the new arena think France men's captain Pierre-Edouard Bellemare described it as gliding on an indoor lake. Switzerland women's player Alina Muller called it pretty good, if not pristine conditions. "I guess it's a little softer than other ice surfaces, but that's why we are here a little bit earlier," Muller said. "That's why we practice here before we play. I think (it is) pretty good preparation in the PWHL playing in different venues." At Milano Rho Ice Hockey Arena, which will host six men's and 19 women's games, there is the same level of indifference toward the ice quality. "Ice is always going to be different wherever you travel," U.S. women's captain Hilary Knight said Tuesday. "Understanding that the Olympics is a massive event that kind of pops up for a very finite amount of time, there's going to different challenges you have to overcome, so whether the ice is perfect or not, we're here, we're ready to play." Switzerland women's coach Colin Muller felt practice at Santagiulia goes well for 20 minutes before snow builds up and it gets dicey. "After 45 minutes, you've got to watch out if there's a rut in the ice or something happens," Muller said, acknowledging that women's players are more used to hockey-only venues than the men are. "For us, it's not normal. But I think for the NHL guys and stuff, they play on that kind of ice because they change it out for basketball. It's probably what they're used to." France men's player Yohann Auvitu doesn't want to criticize it because he thinks nowhere in the world has impeccable ice. "When you're playing in Florida and it's 35 degrees (Celsius/95 Fahrenheit) outside, the ice is not good," Auvitu said. "That's how it is, so no complaints. There's going to be three games a day, so I'm not expecting to have good ice. That's just how it is. Just handle it." The rinks are all 3 feet shorter than in the NHL All games are being played on rinks that are 60 meters long by 26 meters wide, or 196.85-by-85.3 feet. NHL dimensions are 200-by-85 feet (60.96 by 25.91 meters), so the ice will be slightly wider and more than 3 feet shorter. "Obviously, as players we see it," U.S. women's player Taylor Heise said. "When you're looking around, you're not looking at the 3 feet you're missing. You're looking at all the things you're gaining from it." What is missing is space in the neutral zone, and while the attacking zones are supposed to be the same size as the NHL, the shape is a little different, with Bellemare saying the corners feel more like ovals. That may not be a bad thing. "The game might be even more offensive because of the fact that it's smaller," Bellemare said. Most NHL players won't arrive until Sunday, but the first impressions are positive. Even as Auvitu looked around at off-ice areas and remarked, "As you can see, it's not even finished," he downplayed some of the little aspects of hockey at the Olympics not being five-star quality. "Locker rooms are fine — we have a little walk to get there," Auvitu said. "But those things don't really matter. It's nowhere perfect, so I am not expecting perfection here."